March Rewind: Duke Wins at the Dean Dome and in Greenville

What's March without Duke Tournament basketball? With this year's ACC and NCAA Tournaments cancelled, we'll go back in time to look at the top Blue Devils postseason games from each date in March and early April. Special thanks to SportsReference.com for boxscores and the Duke Library for the newspaper archive.

Coach K’s second trip to the NCAA Tournament ended in the second round when the 1985 Blue Devils lost to Boston College 74-73 in Houston. Duke sent Johnny Dawkins to the line with 14 seconds left and a chance to tie the game after erasing a five-point lead in a 53-second span. Dawkins missed the front end of a one-and-one, however. The Blue Devils missed four of their final five free throws.

Another Duke Final Four team got its start with an opening round win on St. Patrick’s Day. The 1988 Blue Devils topped Boston University on the home floor of arch rival UNC, 85-69. Duke led Mike Jarvis’ Terriers wire-to-wire as Danny Ferry scored 21 and Kevin Strickland 17. In what the Duke Chronicle called “an anomaly,” most of the crowd at the Smith Center were cheering loudly for the Blue Devils.

Duke blew out Lamar in Winston-Salem to start the first tournament of the new millennium. The top seeded Blue Devils cruised to an 82-55 win behind 18 points and seven assists from Jason Williams, 16 from Carlos Boozer and 12 each from Shane Battier and Nate James.

Duke began a streak of three straight St. Paddy’s Day games with a 93-85 win over UNC-Wilmington in Providence. The 4-seed Blue Devils trailed at halftime to Kevin Keatts’ team. Keatts would soon become a thorn in Duke’s side in ACC play when he moved to NC State following the season. Grayson Allen scored 23 on 15-of-17 shooting from the free throw line. He also had 10 rebounds. Marshall Plumlee scored 23 and Brandon Ingram 20.

In 2017, a controversial bathroom law in North Carolina caused the NCAA to remove all championship events from the state. That meant Duke had to head to Greenville, SC for its opening weekend. The 2-seed Blue Devils opened with an 87-65 win over Troy. Jayson Tatum scored 18 with 12 rebounds. Grayson Allen added 21. Duke then waited to see which of two unappetizing second-round opponents awaited as former Coach K player and assistant Steve Wojciechowski led his Marquette team against the home-state favorite, South Carolina.

In another one of those second-round matchups that the selection committee claims are merely coincidental, Duke was matched with Rhode Island, who was coached by Dan Hurley, the brother of legendary Coach K point guard Bobby. The Blue Devils quickly removed all suspense, leading URI 45-28 at half on the way to an 87-62 blowout in Pittsburgh. Marvin Bagley III hit 8 of 10 shots for 22 points with nine rebounds. Gary Trent Jr. scored 18 on 4-of-9 shooting from three.

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